One of the most significant advancements in communications in recent decades has been the merger of telephony and computer-based technologies. This merger of technologies, has helped replace “plain old telephone service” (POTS) with new telephony architectures, a prime example being the Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN). The merger also has given rise to a plethora of new services and forms of communication, including cellular telephony, Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), and other modes of conveying voice and data information.
The accelerating advancements in telephony technology, specifically, and communications technology, generally, have produced enormous benefits. An occasional by-product of these advances, however, is consumer confusion, engendered by increased system complexities and a wide array of different services targeted to different segments of the consumer population. In today's complex communications environment, for example, it is often not possible for a consumer placing a call over a telephony network to understand the particular characteristics of a call destination or the nature of the phone charges that may be incurred by making a call, at least before placing the call and being connected to the call destination.
When coupled with the ever increasing complexities of emerging telephony technologies, a consumer's inability to ascertain certain characteristics about a call destination before placing a call can result in the consumer incurring a phone charge that was not anticipated or, worse, being the victim of a telephone scam.
A frequent telephone scam is for an unknown caller to leave a message encouraging the consumer to return the call at a given phone number. When the consumer dials the phone number left by the unknown caller, the consumer incurs a significant charge that accrues not to a legitimate service provider but instead to the unscrupulous, albeit unknown, caller who left the phone number. An even more sophisticated scheme involves an unknown caller who leaves a message stating that the consumer has won a prize and should dial back using a code followed by an 800 number to claim the prize. When the consumer follows the unknown caller's dialing instructions, the consumer unwittingly programs his or her phone to forward calls to a long-distance operator. The instigator of the scam, as a result, can call the consumer's number and be forwarded to a long-distance operator, allowing the scam artist to then place long-distance calls that are subsequently billed to the consumer's telephone number.
To date, no wholly effective and efficient mechanism has been devised for alerting a consumer, prior to the consumer's making a call, of the risk associated with making the call. More particularly, there is no satisfactory mechanism for a consumer to ascertain whether the reputation of a call destination warrants further inquiry as to the nature of the unknown caller or avoidance of a call to the particular destination altogether. Although many service providers offer caller ID and call blocking features, these features are little or no help in safeguarding against scams or providing useful information about an entity associated with the call destination.
Relatedly, even if the identity of an entity associated with a phone number can be easily ascertained, there is no mechanism in the context of telephony-based systems for determining the reputation of the entity. A business entity, for example, may widely advertise its telephone number, but a consumer that calls the entity may know little if anything about the entity's reputation before calling. To be adequately informed, the consumer is likely to have to make additional calls beforehand to a regulatory agency or non-governmental organization such as a better business bureau or credit agency. New and emerging telephony technologies provide new modes of connecting to different entities but provide little or no information about entity reputation prior to a consumer's making an initial call to the entity.
Another problem stemming from consumers not fully appreciating the complexities of new and emerging telephony technologies concerns the fact that oftentimes telephony service is not metered. Many of the service plans offered by service providers are so-called “all-you-can-eat” plans, which, for example, provide unlimited telephony service to all domestic call destinations. As a result, many subscribers to such calling plans reasonably expect that no additional charge is incurred by placing a call to domestic call destination. In fact, calls to some destinations, such as those having a 900 call prefix, do result in a charge. Nonetheless, there is as yet no effective or efficient mechanism for informing a consumer prior to the consumer placing a call that doing so will result in a phone charge.